I should be so lucky! I did fly to see my parents in the far east when I was a boy in boarding school over fifty years ago and have been fortunate enough to go visit family in the USA but now it is beyond my means. It's amazing how green you become on the state pension.

I agree with jamoboggins; air travel other than essential love miles is a con; offsetting merely a salve for the guilty conscience. Beset with problems, even local solutions not as straightforward as they seem...

by Kathryn about 1 year ago

Bee 2, you asked if there were any exceptional Carbon Offset schemes out there, well as we know Carbon Offsetting is a tricky business & many aspects of it worry me. For a more holistic approach check out http://www.ozgreen.org.au/news.php & see link on offsetting.We are not accredited but we work by purchasing the tress from locals,employing locals to do the work & we plant trees that produce food.Great!

by Majo about 1 year ago

We recently got our vehicle converted to veg oil with EcoCar, and now we (3people) are planning a little summer holiday, but we will drive rather than flying.

by JeffF about 1 year ago

I have purchased carbon offsets for all of my flights last year and will do so for all future flights. I have also purchased offsets for family members going on trips as gifts.
I use Terra Pass, www.terrapass.com , to purchase them. They also offer offsets for your home energy use and your vehicle mileage. You answer a few simple questions regarding your flight, vehicle, or home and it calculates your carbon footprint. You can then purchase offsets based on this information.
I have also used other means of transportation, e.g. bus and train, instead of taking a short flight.

I don't fly at all. Offsetting is a rather confusing way to think about reducing carbon - it doesn't scrub the CO2 from the atmosphere. Instead it relies on guessing what might have happened otherwise. For example, one of Climate Care's schemes in India involves encouraging farmers to go back to manually ploughing the land instead of using diesel generators. But the diesel generator is inevitably sold and used elsewhere, whilst offsetting money just subsidises the loss of earnings for the farmers. Meanwhile in the UK we use loads of diesel machinery. We need to stop flying, otherwise we're just kidding ourselves about reduced impact.

Most airlines offer you the option of offsetting your flight when you make the booking, but I'm never really sure how that money is used. Anybody have any quality offsetting websites or organizations to share?

AIGA's Center for Sustainable Design offers offsets for flights at http://sustainability.aiga.org/content.cfm//sus_resources/sus_greening/carboncool

myclimate.org seems to be highly regarded.

by Bee over 2 years ago

If anyone comes across an exceptional offsetting program let the hive know. Climate Care are good and there are others, anyone else?